Over the hills to sleepy hollow

MAE Hong Son, in the far northwest corner of Thailand, hasn’t changed much in the last 20 years. It is approximately 15 years since I last visited this small town, surrounded by forested mountains that rise a good 1,800 metres from the floor of a bowl-shaped valley.

The town has a couple of 7-Eleven stores and a KFC fast food outlet, but they are the only recognisable brands apart from the town’s gasoline stations.

“Not such a bad thing,” a local interior designer explains as he works on new room interiors at the town’s 75-unit Mountain Inn.

Read more

Charity calendar with a tourism twist

Chiang Mai residents promote the city and raise funds to help needy children.

THIS IS A STORY OF PERSEVERANCE AGAINST THE ODDS OF RECESSION, CRITICISM AND PLAIN OLD FASHIONED APATHY.

NOW IN ITS THIRD YEAR THE ANNUAL CHIANG MAI CHARITY CALENDAR HAS RAISED IN ITS SHORT LIFESPAN BT1,027,000 FOR  NEEDY CHILDREN IN THE NORTH AND AT THE SAME TIME PRESENTED A CREDIBLE IMAGE OF CHIANG MAI AS A TOURIST DESTINATION. Read more

TTM locks out media on day two

Surprise, hosted media discover the invite was only for the first day of the show.

MEDIA is like a bad penny, it just keeps turning up, when least expected or wanted.

That has to be the abiding impression executives at the Tourism Authority of Thailand want TTM’s invited media to take home with them. Read more

Asia’s premier cycle destination

TEAM Dai, a group of 26 hardy cyclists, resident in Vientiane, Laos, rode from the capital to Luang Prabang, mid-last month, to raise almost US$15,000 for two of the country’s charities.  

It was the second annual charity ride, organised by the group made up of staff working for non-government organisations, aid programmes and expatriates living in Vientiane. 

The riders covered 400 km in just three days following highway 13 north over the mountains to the world heritage town of Luang Prabang. Read more

Trunk and tail light tale

A nightly parade of elephants along Bangkok’s famed tourist strip make a mockery of the city’s legislation.

It’s that time of the year when there are more elephants wandering around Sukhumvit, in downtown Bangkok, than you could ever hope to sight in Khao Yai National Park.

Admittedly, tourists think they are cute and there is nothing more likely to impress Aunt Martha, back home, than a snapshot standing next to the original Nelly the elephant.

Regular beer drinkers at the famed Soi 8 Bar hang around long enough to see Nelly three or four times a night and conclude she is female and very pregnant.

Then there is a tiny tot in tow, twice my height mind you, and his huge older sister. They both trundle through the lanes with flickering cycle lights attached to their tails. Read more

Cha-am in a huff over Hua Hin

You would expect Cha-am and Hua Hin hoteliers would be singing off the same hymn sheet. They are neighbours on the same stretch of beach. Some are so close to each other they can count the bath mats hanging out to dry. Others are mite further, perhaps 20 km up the beach trail.
Well, it appears that some influential folk probably have nothing better to do than to complain that Cha-am is overshadowed by its neighbour. Apparently, they are miffed that the government’s public relations experts publicised the Asean summit as hosted in Hua Hin, when in fact the meetings straddled border into neighbouring Cha-am.

Read more

Press the button if he smiles

As a global recession cuts demand, do immigration officials have more time to reflect on the quality of their smile and service? 

Perhaps that is what fuelled a decision by China’s immigration authorities to give travellers a chance to rate quality of its airport immigration services.

Shanghai Airport is one of the spots where travellers will be surprised to find they can actually give an immigration official a rating on the scale of one to four. To be more precise they can press one of four buttons near the kiosk to judge the official’s performance. Was it miserable, mediocre, good or excellent? Read more

Press the button if he smiles

As a global recession cuts demand, do immigration officials have more time to reflect on the quality of their smile and service?

Perhaps that is what fuelled a decision by China’s immigration authorities to give travellers a chance to rate quality of its airport immigration services.

Shanghai Airport is one of the spots where travellers will be surprised to find they can actually give an immigration official a rating on the scale of one to four. To be more precise they can press one of four buttons near the kiosk to judge the official’s performance. Was it miserable, mediocre, good or excellent?

This innovation apparently surprises visitors arriving at an otherwise indifferent Shanghai where service and pleasing tourists runs a second best to the art of squeezing the best deal from business discussions.

Each immigration checkpoint has a small message that identifies the official and invites passengers to “rate my service.” Read more

Raffle your way to recovery?

Hand out deals, discounts and freebies, anything but a sensible plan for recovery.

I have always wanted B10 million in free hotel rooms at my beckoning. It’s the stuff of dreams.  We could shuffle a deck of cards on a Friday and raffle off a couple of nights at a selection of famous resort hotels, for ourselves and friends. Not just once, but every week. Tempting?  

It’s preposterous. But it never occurred to me that there are hoteliers so desperate they are prepared to donate literally millions of baht in free rooms all on the whim of the media.  Not a single guarantee that any of the rooms will be given to the almost forgotten target – the genuine tourists. Read more

Raffle your way to recovery?

Hand out deals, discounts and freebies, anything but a sensible plan for recovery.

I have always wanted B10 million in free hotel rooms at my beckoning. It’s the stuff of dreams. We could shuffle a deck of cards on a Friday and raffle off a couple of nights at a selection of famous resort hotels, for ourselves and friends. Not just once, but every week. Tempting?

It’s preposterous. But it never occurred to me that there are hoteliers so desperate they are prepared to donate literally millions of baht in free rooms all on the whim of the media. Not a single guarantee that any of the rooms will be given to the almost forgotten target – the genuine tourists.

Through a trap door

Desperation is the key word here. We see travel dropping through the trap door and wonder if there is a tomorrow. Then our saviour appears in the form of a new generation of media – email newsletters. Read more

Next Page »